


If A Great Wave Shall Fall

by petramaximoff



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Fix-It, Clint And Natasha Love Each Other The Details Don't Matter, F/M, Gen, Grief, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers Angst, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers' 100th Birthday, Steve Rogers's Birthday, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, sad but hopeful
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14534178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petramaximoff/pseuds/petramaximoff
Summary: There are no candles, that day. No cake, no presents, no one even mentions his 100th birthday.SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR.This is your warning.(Multi-chaptered, but the first one can be read as a stand-alone.)





	1. If A Great Wave Shall Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stylocked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylocked/gifts).



> The working title of this chapter was 'Steve Rogers' 100th Birthday Fucking Sucks'.
> 
> The working title of the story is 'Steve Rogers Fucks The Timeline'. Take from that what you will. 
> 
> Some characters are just mentioned, but I didn't want to make the tags too spoilery, so I didn't specify. Infinity War made me cry a lot and then angry a lot, which became 'Steve Rogers would not stand for this bullshit'. Then I remembered that 2018 happens to be the year of his 100th birthday and... FEELINGS.
> 
> For Best Person, [stylocked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylocked/pseuds/stylocked).

**July 4th, 2018.**

It’s midnight. 

Steve sits in the darkness of his room, files scattered across the table in front of him, on the floor, the kitchen counter, the shelves, everywhere.

Reports after reports after reports, of people needing help in places ruined. Turns out that when half the population disappears, a lot of damage is left behind. 

Damage.

Steve snorts, shaking his head at himself as he scratches at his beard and reaches for a drink.

(Thor had been kind enough to share, and these days, Asgardian ale is the only thing that keeps Steve from releasing the scream that has been building since the moment they got Bruce Banner’s distress call.)

They were all damaged, according to some. 

When half the population disappears, you cannot expect humans to just accept it and move on. No, they need more than that - a gigantic purple alien god snapping his fingers while wearing a magical glove is not good enough. 

The truth never is, though, is it?

The first conspiracy theories were born within moments of The Departure. 

(Tony had called it the Snap for a few days, running on coffee and energy drinks and no sleep, until May Parker’s call reached him and he had to be the one to inform her that her nephew had Departed while on a school field trip.

She held a funeral for Peter, as many chose to. Others did not - too shocked, too angry, too confused, deeming it pointless to bury the strange, dead ashes that had never burned.)

Some thought it was the government, but then again, some always thought it was the government. Others blamed the Avengers, the Enhanced, the Inhumans, claimed it was some kind of secret science experiment gone wrong. 

Religion, though? While everyone else cried that the Departure was an unfortunate accident at best, pre-meditated genocide at worst (which was, admittedly, fairly correct, although they never seemed to blame the right person), religion thought it a blessing. The Rapture, promised long ago, now come to judge us all and deciding who was worthy of crossing into the next world, while the unworthy were left behind.

Once, Steve would have agreed. Part of him still wished to, the part that ached since the moment Bucky disappeared before his eyes, since Sam faded away into nothingness, since Wanda’s hands turned to dust on Vision’s lifeless body.

(The New Vision is lifeless in different ways, curious and polite yet unaware of all they had sacrificed, his memories of his first life lost along with something Steve cannot quite name but makes him queasy to witness the absence of. Some nights, he wonders if Wanda would have remained with them, had she known that Vision could be brought back to life, different but alive, if she would have fought against the unknown force that took her, instead of giving in to it - but perhaps it would have made no difference, either way.)

He knows better now, though. It would be so easy to think that only the best of them Departed, finding eternal peace and happiness on the other end – but he has read the reports of prisons missing inmates, of dangerous criminals’ ashes identified across the world and he can’t fool himself into ignorance like so many. 

This was no Rapture, there was no pattern Tony or Shuri or any scientist on the world could determine. It was simply genocide, unflinching and indiscriminate. 

His phone chimes with a message and he reaches for it, scans the contents and frowns, reaching for a folder behind the couch and typing out his own message to the team to alert them of the schedule change tomorrow. Since the Departure, wannabe supervillains and evil scientists seemingly all had the clever idea of taking over the world in the chaos, resulting in weekly sessions of the Avengers (and new friends who refused to call themselves that, but joined the team all the same) showing up and disrupting someone’s evil plans, usually during lunchtime, before returning to their regular schedules consisting of clean-up and/or endless scientific attempts at fixing the world.

He supposes it’s good anger management, or at the very least, beating up little robot/monster armies keeps them from attacking each other (again).

He gets some responses instantly – no one sleeps much, these days – and acknowledges them before placing his phone on the table again, never glancing at the date it shows.

-

The sun has set by the time he gets Tony’s message, and after a long day of work, it takes him a while to understand what the rambling words mean.

The moment he does, he sets off running for the jet, his heart beating in his chest faster than it has for months.

-

When he first sees him, he stops for a moment, unable to breathe – then he looks up, eyes tired and pained, but with a flicker of happiness as he nods.

“Cap.”

“Clint,” Steve returns, starting forward and hugging the man tight, receiving a squeeze back and a small, startled chuckle. “Where have you--“

“It’s a long story. Scott’s here, too, with Tony, talking tech. I’ll tell you af—“

“Clint?” Nat’s voice is shaky, shakier than Steve has ever heard her, and Clint’s face does something that makes Steve’s heart break a little, twisting with envy as he steps aside, allowing them to see one another.

Nat rushes forward, just barely holding back a sob, and they are still clinging to each other when Steve quietly slips out of the room and toward the lab.

-

Tony and Scott use a lot of big words Steve doesn’t understand and doesn’t try to. He just watches.

He watches for a long time, and waits.

-

There are no candles, that day. No cake, no presents, no one even mentions his 100th birthday. 

But as he stands silently, as Scott and Tony argue, as Shuri joins in on the debate with a roll of her eyes and corrects them both, as they begin working on something that can change the world, for the better this time, as Thor stands with Rocket, contributing suggestions ranging from fantastical to violent, as Clint and Nat sit in a corner, whispering to each other, as Okoye stands close behind Shuri, silent and always watching, as Rhodey makes Tony sit and tricks him into eating a sandwich between increasingly more animated words—

There is hope.


	2. It'd Fall Upon Us All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess this is now a bit longer, Steve is refusing to stay put.
> 
> Also, forgot to mention this in chapter one, but 'the Departure' and 'the Departed' and the world-building stuff is the result of a Leftovers crossover, which deals with an event very similar to the Snap, except there it's 2% of the population, not 50%. It's one of the best shows I've ever seen, so if you want to cry a bit more, check it out.

** August 10th, 2018. **

 

Tony hasn’t left the lab in three days.

Somehow, it happens to be Steve’s turn to keep an eye on him today. After a while, it had become clear that Rhodey wasn’t going to be enough. Queen Shuri has a whole nation to look after and can’t spend all her time in the lab, Scott has his daughter to raise, Bruce and Rhodey somehow end up being in charge of Stark Industries with a Departed CEO and an owner refusing to leave Stark Tower. The rest of them are busy keeping the world safe, and so the schedule happens after the second explosion that shakes the Tower.

Old grudges or not, there are only a few of them left and they have to keep each other safe.

It’s Peter Parker’s birthday, Steve knows, thanks to Rhodey having warned him quietly the other day. Steve wishes he had something to say that would make Tony feel better about that, about any of it, but he has nothing. 

None of them do.

So he sits on a couch as Tony works, mumbling to himself while blasting music at an ear-shattering volume, and for a few moments, Steve doesn’t even notice the change. Then the song ends and he glances up to find Tony frozen and shaking as he stares at something on the screen, eyes wide and red.

He’s on his feet before he can think, grabbing Tony’s shoulder, gentle but firm.

Tony looks up, eyes filled with desperation and hope and tears and Steve can feel it in his bones.

_Soon._

 

** August 20th, 2018. **

 

It takes them over a week to make the first machine, all of the scientists working day and night. The world keeps turning, of course, what little there’s left of it, and they keep saving it, but Steve’s patience fades more and more with each day that passes.

There are a multitude of problems once the machine is functional. One, they have no idea how to test it. They try it with a rat, first and while it disappears, it never comes back, which is not relieving in the slightest. With Tony’s technology, their best bet is to control it by focusing their minds on a memory, remember it as clearly as they can, but memories are subjective and so they can’t be sure that they’re reliable as a form of aiming. Another problem is choosing the memory itself: they all have different ideas about when would be the best time to return to, when they could still make a difference, nor do they know what the limits of the machine are. They can only guess. Bruce also goes on and on about the paradox of the traveler meeting themselves, about how that could endanger everything.

Steve can tell that Tony wants to be the one to go, aching to do something so badly he seems close to exploding with it, sometimes. Steve knows that Scott is the one who knows his end of the science best, and thus it would make sense for him to go. Steve can tell that the idea of going all alone is a bad one, because they have seen how weak they are alone when it comes to what they will have to fight against. Steve knows that Thor is the strongest of them with the strongest weapon against Thanos, that Thor has lost the most out of them all. 

But Steve has bad ideas, sometimes.

And Steve knows that there is only one of them strong enough to hope to withstand the possible side effects of time traveling – the list so long that he had given up after reading most of the first page – and has no responsibilities to leave behind, no people to take care of, anymore.

Only one of them who can go back to a time of peace without risking running into themselves and destroying the universe in the process.

Only one of them had been frozen in ice for seventy years. 

-

He listens to them argue for days.

He listens long enough to know by heart exactly what he is supposed to do, even though he doesn’t understand the physics behind it. He had always been a quick learner.

In the end, he doesn’t say goodbye. He didn’t get to say goodbye to Bucky. Or Sam, or Wanda, or T’Challa. 

If this works, he will never have to say goodbye to anyone ever again.

-

That night, he convinces Tony to eat and sleep in a bed for once. He tells Scott, Shuri and Thor to go home and spend time with their families, their people. S.H.I.E.L.D. calls Nat and Clint in and they leave after dinner. Rocket leaves with Thor and Rhodey goes to bed once he’s sure Tony has done the same.

It’s just Bruce and Steve, reading in peace on the common floor, when Steve stretches and stands. His skin feels tight, his fingers shake slightly, but his head is clear and his smile kind.

“I’m turning in for the night, Bruce. You should, too,” he announces, and Bruce meets his eyes only for a moment, lost in thought.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Goodnight, Steve,” he responds absently, and Steve turns away, smile falling as his heart speeds up.

The elevator doors slide closed behind him a few seconds later.

The numbers change slowly, one by one.

The doors open with a quiet ding and Steve walks towards the lab, his footsteps speeding up in the empty hallway.

Upstairs, Bruce looks up, his eyes widening.

“Shit.”

He scrambles to his feet, green around the edges as he nearly falls over trying to get to the elevator, pushing the buttons rapidly.

Steve straps on the machine and moves inside the panic room.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., F.R.I.D.A.Y., shit, wake Tony, wake everyone, we have to get to the lab—“

The door closes and Steve is alone.

He turns the machine on, watching as the lights flicker.

“What the fuck is going on—“

“Sir, Captain Rogers has entered the panic room inside the laboratory and initiated security protocol 5A. I am detecting increased levels of radioactivity—“

“Fuck.”

“No, he fucking didn’t—“

“Rogers! Rogers, fucking listen to me, you piece of—“ 

Steve closes his eyes and remembers.

He remembers Bucky Barnes’ warmth by his side.

He remembers the cold winter winds.

He remembers ’This isn't payback, is it?’.

He remembers the sound of a train in the distance.

A tear slides down his cheek and he can barely feel the pain begin.

It grows and grows and grows and he can see the light even through his eyelids and the pain is worse than anything he had ever felt, even the serum—

He screams, and it echoes over the comms, making Tony curse as he keeps trying to override the system—

And then, suddenly – 

it’s over.


	3. Well I Hope There's Someone Out There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve's journey continues, or rather he refuses to leave my brain. I have no idea how long this will go on or where it's going. But hey, 
> 
> [spoiler alert]
> 
> at least Bucky makes an appearance in this one.

The moment Steve arrives, he knows he fucked up.

Or, okay, to be perfectly honest, he doesn't feel anything but pain for a while, his entire body burning, even his hair feeling like it's on fire, and his mind helpfully supplies him with Bruce's list of possible health risks associated with ripping open the fabric of time and forcing yourself through it, and okay, he's in way too much in pain to listen to the voices in his head telling him 'I told you so'.

Still, the first moment he can sense more than just _'ow ow ow'_ , he knows.

For one thing, he's sweating in his tactical suit, which would be pretty fucking impossible mid-winter in the Alps.

For another, he can feel grass below him and sunshine on his face and hear the laughter of children in the distance. 

_Am I dead?_ he wonders, and fuck. He killed himself in the machine, didn't he, and now he's in some kind of afterli--

"Hello?" a voice, familiar, so familiar, comes from right above him, a shadow over his face. Steve almost doesn't dare open his eyes.

"Pal? You alright?" the voice asks again, with a mix of worry and curiousity Steve knows better than he knows himself.

His eyes open.

Bucky Barnes stares down at him with a frown that slowly morphs into confusion, then recognition, followed by shock.

"... Steve?" 

 

**Coney Island, 1938.**

 

Shit.

"Hey, Buck," Steve manages to choke out through his tears, his brain working overtime trying to process exactly what he'd done, what had been done to his body and that Bucky's really there, looking young and healthy and alive, even if he currently looks like a gaping fish.

Too young, so young, young enough that Steve knows this isn't heaven, but real. Bucky's real, and Steve's in the past, the actual past - although not quite the past he'd wanted to end up in.

And with another version of him still walking around. Probably somewhere nearby, fresh off vomiting his guts out, if the Cyclone above Bucky's head is any indication.

Shit, Rogers. Now get yourself out of this one.

"Steve, what... is this... how?" Bucky continues to gape but Steve quickly shakes his head (and _ow_ , bad idea) and sits up ( _fuck_ , even worse idea), grabbing Bucky's hand as his friend offers it instinctively, used to taking care of Steve and fuck, if that isn't like a punch to Steve's own guts.

"I'll explain everything later, I promise, but I can't meet him. Me. Steve," he rushes to explain, and Bucky stares at him for a while before his eyes narrow.

"You... Did you travel through fuckin' time?!" he exclaims, and while, yeah, Steve's sorta proud of him for figuring that one out so fast (not that seeing a strange older and impossibly bigger version of Steve with a beard, dressed in a military-looking uniform, appear out of thin air is a small clue to work with), it's also really fucking inconvenient at the moment, because Bucky used to be passionate about this stuff, and also never fucking shut up when it came to Steve's safety and Steve risking it by doing dumb stuff - and Steve is in the past, the actual past, where Bucky is no longer past tense anything but real and beautiful and alive and definitely gearing up to yell at him and okay, they really have no time for this right now.

"It's a long story and I'll tell you, but I have to go now, I'm sorry." And he is, he's more sorry than anyone, because leaving Bucky right now feels like ripping his heart out and stomping on it, but he has to--

"Steve--"

"Meet me at Ray's. Tonight, after I--he--Steve's asleep," Steve commands, in his Captain America voice, and it makes Bucky's eyes widen and then narrow, but it's effective enough to shut him up until he's turned the corner and so Steve counts it as a win.

Except then he's all alone in the middle of 1930s New York with absolutely no means of getting back to 2018.

Fuck.


	4. Who Can Bring Me Back To You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post more for a while, because Exams, but the boys wanted to talk, so here we are.

**Brooklyn, 1938.**

 

"So, let me get this straight, pal. We had another Great War. I was drafted, you enlisted and got yourself turned into a super-soldier by science, decided this made you invincible and so you attacked an evil secret organization's base all on your own to save me while I got experimented on, like you, but by evil people? Then you and I formed our own group of war heroes, went around the world defeating evil in the war until you thought I died, you killed yourself trying to save the world but instead got frozen for seventy years, woke up in the future, fought aliens with other super-people, then fought some more, found out I wasn't dead, but you refuse to tell me how or why and why I hadn't aged, we fought together, your super-team broke up, but then a giant purple alien came and we all fought it until he snapped his fingers and most of us died, causing your friends to build the world's first time machine, which you then stole to come back here and change everything?"

"... Yes."

"..."

"Bucky..."

"You fuckin' idiot!" 

Bucky's fist slams into Steve's shoulder and while Steve can't say he wasn't expecting that a little, he's still caught off guard as Bucky continues to slam his fists against Steve's chest. 

"I cannot fuckin' believe, I leave you alone for five fuckin' seconds, do you have any fuckin' clue what self-preservation is, you stupid punk--"

"Buck--"

"I'm not finished!! Time travel, Steven!" Bucky yells at him, and in hindsight, Steve's glad he brought them to a park, alone in the middle of the night, where it's private. 

It'd taken him an hour or two to get the story out - he knows he's beyond lucky that Bucky doesn't think him loony, but he supposes his body is enough of a shock to make Bucky believe at least some of it, and he trusts Steve more than anyone else in the world, which means he believes all the rest, too, including the aliens and the magic and all the other stuff even Steve still doesn't quite believe himself.

"Jumping into another science experiment with zero proof that it was gonna work, again?! Did you learn absolutely fuckin' nothin' after the first time?! Have you completely lost your mind--"

"I lost you," Steve blurts out, and something in his tone makes Bucky still, which Steve takes as his chance to wrap his fingers around Bucky's wrists, holding them against his chest.

"Again. I lost you again, and I... I couldn't take it. Not when I just got you back," Steve whispers, then ducks his head to brush his lips over Bucky's knuckles, feeling Bucky's pulse speed up beneath his fingers.

Bucky stares, watching as Steve's eyelashes flutter, suspiciously wet, and his anger fades, replaced by heartbreak and concern and love, his shoulders slumping as he steps closer.

The thing is, he always thought he would be the one who would have to learn how to live without Steve one day. His friend was the most stubborn little shit in the world, but Bucky had sat through too many nights listening to Steve's rattling, ugly coughs, to be blind about this. The doctors had thought Steve wouldn't even live this long, his Ma had called for the priest to read Steve his last rites multiple times, while Bucky sat beside his bed, holding Steve's hand with silent prayers of his own to whoever would listen.

So yeah, while he doesn't get what being a time-traveling super-soldier is like, he gets this. He knows how it feels to nearly lose Steve and then get him back. Those nights when Steve gets sick are even worse since they'd lost Steve's Ma, since Bucky's realized just how terrifyingly in love he is with his best friend.

(He tries not to think of the way this Steve looks at him, the way he touches him and how it makes his stomach flutter as he thinks of what it means for his future.)

He can't imagine his life without Steve, but he's never even thought to imagine Steve's life without him.

He reaches out, gently, just a little hesitant because this Steve is so new and big and unknown - but the moment he touches the underside of Steve's chin, Steve's eyes flicker up, big and blue and wide and oh, that's familiar, so familiar, and it blows him away, how he has never seen Steve so _broken_ , stubborn to the bone even when his body had been failing.

Now, the body is perfect, but the man inside seems more lost than ever.

Bucky Barnes has never been able to ignore the urge to take care of Steve Rogers.

"I'm right here," he murmurs, his arm wrapping around Steve's shoulder (so wide, so firm, so warm) as he leans in, pressing his forehead against Steve's, watching as Steve takes in a shaky breath, his lips trembling, face crumbling before Bucky's eyes.

"It's okay. I'm here," he repeats, and Steve sobs, falling into his arms - and Bucky catches him, holding on tighter than he has ever dared before.

"I'm right here."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Calling's _Wherever You Will Go_.


End file.
